Zhang Jinghui

Zhang Jinghui (1871-1 November 1959) was Prime Minister of Manchukuo from May 1935 to August 1945, succeeding Zheng Xiaoxu.

Biography
Zhang Jinghui was born in 1871 in Tai'an, Liaoning, China. He joined the cavalry of Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin at an early age, and he fought in the Russo-Japanese War as a Japanese mercenary. Zhang rose in the ranks of the militaries of China during the turbulent 1910s and 1920s, and he served as Minister of War of the Beiyang Government from May 1926 to June 1927. After the Japanese Kwantung Army's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, he fought to achieve the secession of Manchuria from China, and he reached a deal with the Japanese government in which he would govern Heilongjiang. In 1935, he became Prime Minister of Manchukuo, and he let Imperial Japanese Army advisers manage the day-to-day affairs of Manchukuo while he copied sutra scrolls. He remained Prime Minister until the Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, and he was first imprisoned by the USSR and then by China, dying in prison in 1959.